M-commerce is the new e-commerce

While online retail is enjoying a boom, m-commerce is the channel of choice for the majority.
27 May 2020

Smartphones on the background of the electronics store. Source: Shutterstock

With more people resorting to shopping from home than ever before, e-commerce platform sales are skyrocketing.

Even before the recent health crisis forced everyone indoors, online sales figures were already accounting for 18 percent of all retail transactions performed in 2019.

Online sellers need to be savvy to maintain their market share and to keep customers coming back for more, sometimes within a crowded marketplace.

E-commerce data published last year by Mintel shows that 86 percent of people in the UK buy from Amazon, with an astounding 70 percent purchasing a minimum of once per month.

Of that number, 26 percent are Amazon Prime members which affords them rapid delivery options, and other value-add services.

“The rate of evolution with consumer behaviors has been difficult for some brands to keep pace with,” Martin Willetts, Deloitte’s technology consulting partner, told Cloud Pro.

“Those e-commerce organizations that are investing in the flexibility of systems, tools, and processes, are the ones turning the challenge into a real opportunity.

“The biggest trend is how e-commerce organizations are transforming their capabilities, so they can adapt to support consumer needs while also scaling operations as digital shopping habits continue to proliferate,” he continued.

“Also, consumers are increasingly expecting full transparency from brands with regards to both the sustainability and ethical sourcing of products.”

Nowhere is this above-referenced transformation more clearly evident than in the take-up and implementation of mobile-first solutions. E-sellers can now harness cashless checkouts, self-service functionality, even the clean navigational ease of digital kiosks all via their smartphones.

For the consumer there is now a plethora of touchpoints and numerous online avenues to purchase their ‘wants’ and ‘must-haves’ as quickly and as conveniently as they can click, or tap.

Enterprise mobility firm SOTI’s latest State of Mobility in Retail report makes it clear which will be the dominant sales channel moving forward: 67 percent of end consumers believe mobile tech is the best means of shopping online.

In fact, the buying experience on devices is so good that a surprising 76 percent of customers wish that physical store staff will offer a better retail experience by using mobile devices themselves.

The omnichannel commercial reality is officially here, and while online retail is enjoying a boom, m-commerce is the channel of choice for the majority.

And the statistical estimates only see mobile’s sphere of influence growing in the coming years. GSMA approximates that another 1.4 billion humans will begin using the internet on smartphones, bringing the total number of mobile internet users to around 5 billion worldwide.